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Comment by Nadya | Hacker News Reader

Do you know the original use of the "Don't mess with Texas" slogan? Do you think if people didn't repurpose the phrase it would have kept its original meaning? By leaving it alone you're ceding that the phrase belongs to Trump - who stole it from Ronald Reagan's "Let's Make America Great Again" 1980's campaign slogan.

I'm saying don't let him own it at all. It isn't his to own - it's a cliché English snowclone that he gave popularity to. It doesn't deserve to be a powerful slogan that makes people think of Trump. It deserves to be a generic, overused snowclone devoid of any significant meaning where the average person no longer remembers the original phrase or meaning.

By ceding it to Trump and wishing to discontinue usage of it you're choosing to give it power and continue a legacy that it doesn't deserve.

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Eh, you're making a fair point but I guess I just disagree. It's not like anyone used that phrase anymore by the time Trump pulled it out. It was always anachronistic. Meanwhile every modern usage is an explicit reference to Trump's usage. Maybe there will be a time in the future where they aren't, but it's not here yet.

You've probably pattern-matched me to a different kind of Trump-hater than I actually am. In fact my complaining about this was more of the form: I and many others would rather not think about Trump while reading unrelated tech news and using that phrase in your title is a tiresome association that is less pleasant than leaving it out.

If you try and prevent any usage of the phrase/snowclone it will only ever be an explicit reference to Trump's usage though. This is why I made the comparison to slurs against the LGBT communities earlier. If you only ever allow "gay" to be used as an insult instead of a self-identifying label that means it will only ever be used as an insult. This is why the reclamation of it as a self-identifying label was so huge in the 1990s/2000s and calling everything "gay" as an insult largely fell out of common vernacular. By refusing to allow it to be an insult it eventually ceased being one even if it took the better half of two decades. I'd rather see "make X Y again" used everywhere until it has nothing to do with Trump anymore and is just a cliché snowclone. Even if that means seeing it in my tech news ("Make Linux Fast Again" is/was another one). Even if it takes the better part of 10-20 years to make it cliché/generic enough to no longer remind people of Trump.

You are correct that I misidentified you - and I understand your point in the latter paragraph about it being more of an annoyance of politics overstepping into your unrelated Tech news rather than "Ugh, Trump". I'm glad I was able to get my point across clearly and as long as you understand where I am coming from we can absolutely disagree over my opinion on the matter. After all - it is just an opinion.

Thanks for keeping the discussion civil and take care o7

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